Karl Anthony-Towns scored a career-high 47 points but the Minnesota Timberwolves still fell to the New York Knicks 106-104. Towns also added 18 boards and three blocks.
"It was a monster game," Wolves coach Tom Thibodeau said. "It's unfortunate that we couldn't pull out the win," he added.
Thibodeau has expressed his disappointment with the team following their loss to the Utah Jazz. Towns showed his maturity as a player and said that it's on him for the Timberwolves to start winning games.
"All these losses fall on my shoulders," Towns said. "I have to play at a higher level, at a level where we can't lose," he added.
Towns was aggressive from the get-go and scored 22 of his 47 in the opening period. He shot an efficient 15-22 from the field and 17-20 from the foul line. He also got some help offensively from Andrew Wiggins and Zach Lavine who had 19 and 17, respectively.
Despite Towns' efforts, the Wolves found themselves trailing almost the entire game. The Knicks held a 17-point lead with less than eight minutes left in the final period. They rallied back and went on a 20-3 run and tied the game at 102-102 with 49.8 seconds left. The game became tied again at 104-104 until Carmelo Anthony hit the game-winning shot to seal the game for the Knicks.
Although Anthony hit the game-winning shot, he struggled for much of the night, scoring 14 points on just 5-16 from the field. It was Kristaps Porzingis' 29 points and eight rebounds that paced the Knicks and some much-needed bench production from Brandon Jennings and Mindaugas Kuzminskas.
Thibodeau was rather pleased with his team's efforts compared to their last few games. "The urgency was there, but the urgency needs to be there from the beginning of the game, throughout the game," Thibodeau said.
The Wolves have now lost three in a row and six of their last seven games. They are now 5-13 for the season but a performance like this from Towns could be a sign of better things to come.
